Referring now to FIG. 1, an internetwork 10 is shown that includes a first subnetwork 12, a second subnetwork 14, and a connection 16 to a distributed communications system 18, such as the Internet. First subnetwork 12 includes a plurality of wireless stations 20-1, 20-2, . . . , 20-n that are associated with a first wireless access point (AP_A) 22. Second subnetwork 14 includes a plurality of wireless stations 24-1, 24-2, . . . , 24-m that are associated with a second wireless access point (AP_B) 26. AP_A 22 and AP_B 26 communicate with a switch 28 that routes data packets between first network 12, second network 14 and distributed communications system 10.
Internetwork 10 is of typical construction in that AP_A 22 and AP_B 26 each include, in pertinent part, a media access controller (MAC) and a physical layer module (PHY) to form and communicate data packets over the wireless channel.